Planes, sharks inspire design

Sandy Ginter, lab technician in the School of Art and Designs ceramic program, stands inside one of her ceramic creations on display at the Media Union Gallery. The Cranbrook graduate used her School of Art and Design studio to create what she calls suits, also the name of her exhibition, inspired by the shapes of airplanes and sharks. Some of her ceramic creations weigh as much as 40 pounds and are 6 feet tall. A forklift was required to put the pieces in a gas-fired kiln. Photo by Marcia L. Ledford, U-M Photo Services

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Sparling Company performs at Summer Festival

The Peter Sparling Dance Company will present Adventures in New Media at 8 p.m. June 30 at the Power Center for the Performing Arts for its seventh annual modern dance performance at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. The program consists of a trio of dances that weave together movement and media vistas of poetry and the spoken word, sculptural imagery, innovative musical scores and Internet2 technology.

Possible Dances is set to six of Peter Sparlings own poems and will be performed by the choreographer and seven dancers. The world-premiere performance features a score by New York composer Paul Epstein.

Whitley Setrakians This Flock focuses on the haunting figurative sculpture of Magdalena Abakanowiczs installation of the same name, exhibited last year at the Museum of Art. Setrakian is an Ann Arbor-based choreographer whose company, People Dancing, performs regularly in southeastern Michigan.

The second full theatrical staging of The Ariel Web will be featured during the performance. Begun as a multi-media video sent via Internet2 to a conference in Seattle, the work has grown to incorporate live music, poetry reading and live, projected dance. The Ariel Web team consists of U-M and local artists.

An informal performance preview will be held 7:308 p.m. in the Power Center lobby. Tickets, $26, $20 and $14, can be purchased by calling the Summer Festival Box Office, (734) 764-2538; visiting the Burton Memorial Tower Ticket Office or the Michigan Union Ticket Office; calling Ticketmaster, (734) 763-8587; or visiting the Web at www.ticketmaster.com.